Miss Sharp had left the piano and came over to me--.
"I am afraid you did not like that," she said--"I am so sorry"--her
voice was not so cold as usual.
"Yes I did--" I answered--"forgive me for being an awful ass--I--I--love
music tremendously, you see--"
She stood still for a moment--I was balancing myself by the table, my
crutch had fallen. Then she put out her hand.
"Can I help you to sit down again?"--she suggested.
And I let her--I wanted to feel her touch--I have never even shaken
hands with her before. But when I felt her guiding me to the chair, the
maddest desire to seize her came over me--to seize her in my arms to
tear off those glasses, to kiss those beautiful blue eyes they hid--to
hold her fragile scrap of a body tight against my breast, to tell her
that I loved her--and wanted to hold her there, mine and no one else's
in all the world----My God! what am I writing--I must crush this
nonsense--I must be sane--. But--what an emotion! The strongest I have
ever felt about a woman in my life--.
When I was settled in the chair again--things seemed to become blank for
a minute and then I heard Miss Sharp's voice with a tone--could it be of
anxiety? in it? saying "Drink this brandy, please." She must have gone
to the dining-room and fetched the decanter and glass from the case,
and poured it out while I was not noticing events.
I took it.
Again I said--"I am awfully sorry I am such an ass."
"If you are all right now--I ought to go back to my work," she
remarked--.
I nodded--and she went softly from the room. When I was alone, I used
every bit of my will to calm myself--I analysed the situation. Miss
Sharp loathes me--I cannot hold her by any means if she decides to go--.
The only way I can keep her near me is by continuing to be the cool
employer--And to do this I must see her as little as possible--because
the profound disturbance she is able to cause in me, reacts upon my raw
nerves--and with all the desire in the world to behave like a decent,
indifferent man, the physical weakness won't let me do so, and I am so
bound to make a consummate fool of myself.
When I was in the trenches and the shells were coming, and it was
beastly wet and verminy and uncomfortable, I never felt this feeble,
horrible quivering--I know just what funk is--I felt it the day I did
the thing they gave me the V.C. for. This is not exactly funk--I wish I
knew what it was and could crush it out of myself--.